The Hitopadesa (Penguin Classics) Read online

  THE HITOPADEŚA

  As with many ancient Sanskrit authors, little is known of Nārāyaṇa beyond his name. He was evidently a devotee of the god Siva, who is invoked in both the opening and concluding verses of the Hitopadeśa. Contemporary scholars suggest that Nārāyaṇa was a poet or a preceptor at the court of his patron Dhavala Ćandra, a prince or viceroy or provincial satrap of eastern India, who commissioned the work. This densely layered and textured masterpiece was composed between 800 and 950 AD. Nārāyaṇa was an erudite grammarian and philosopher as well as a consummate stylist with a full command of epigrammatic, lyrical, satirical and rhetorical modes. He interspersed his own stanzas with skilful selections and arrangements of extracts from traditional sources. These include the immortal Panćatantra, the Ramayana and Mahabharata, the Puraņas, the Manusmŗti, manuals on economics and statecraft inspired by Ćāṇakya’s Arthaśāstra, and famous literary and dramatic compositions.

  ADITYA NARAYAN DHAIRYASHEEL HAKSAR was born in Gwalior and educated at the Doon School and the universities of Allahabad and Oxford. He spent many years as a career diplomat, and went on to become India’s High Commissioner to Kenya and the Seychelles, and later the Ambassador to Portugal and Yugoslavia. He has translated various classics from the Sanskrit, including the plays of Bhasa (The Shattered Thigh and Other Plays), Daṇḍin’s Daśa Kumāra Charitam (Tales of the Ten Princes) and Nārāyaṇa’s Hitopadeśa, all published by Penguin.

  The Hitopadeśa

  Translated from the Sanskrit with an Introduction by

  A. N. D. HAKSAR

  PENGUIN BOOKS

  PENGUIN BOOKS

  Published by the Penguin Group

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  First published by Penguin Books India 1998

  Published in Penguin Classics 2006

  1

  Copyright © A. N. D. Haksar, 1998

  All rights reserved

  The moral right of the author has been asserted

  Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser

  EISBN: 978–0–141–90798–7

  P.M.S.

  For my daughter

  Sharada

  with all my love

  Key to the Pronunciation of Sanskrit Words

  Vowels:

  The line on top of a vowel indicates that it is long.

  a (short) as the u in but

  ā (long) as the a in far

  i (short) as the i in sit

  ī (long) as the ee in sweet

  u (short) as the u in put

  ū as the oo in cool

  e is always a long vowel like the a in mate

  ai as the i in pile

  o as the ow in owl

  Consonants:

  k, b and p are the same as in English

  kh is aspirated

  g as in goat

  gh is aspirated

  ć as in church or cello

  ćh is aspirated as in chhota

  j as in jewel

  jh is aspirated

  ṭ and ḍ are hard when dotted below as in talk and dot

  ṭṭ is the aspirated sound

  ḍḍ is aspirated

  ṇ when dotted is a dental; the tongue has to curl back to touch the palate.

  ṅ as in king

  t undotted is a soft sound as in thermal

  th is aspirated

  d undotted is a soft sound—there is no corresponding English sound, the Russian ‘da’ is the closest.

  dh is aspirated

  ph and bh are aspirated

  There are three sibilants in Sanskrit: s as in song, ṣ as in shove and a palatal ś which is in between, e.g. Śiva.

  Contents

  Introduction

  Prastāvikā / Prologue

  BOOK I: Mitralābha / Gaining Friends

  The Traveller and the Tiger

  The Deer, the Crow and the Jackal

  The Cat and the Vulture

  The Monks and the Mouse

  The Old Man and the Young Wife

  The Greedy Jackal

  The Merchant’s Bride

  The Elephant and the Jackal

  BOOK II: Suhṛdbheda / Splitting Partners

  The Meddlesome Monkey

  The Intrusive Ass

  The Cat which became Superfluous

  The Canny Procuress

  Our Faults redound on Us

  The Woman with Two Lovers

  The Cunning Crow

  The Lion and the Rabbit

  The Lapwing and the Ocean

  BOOK III: Vigraha / War

  The Birds who tried to help the Monkeys

  The Ass Disguised as A Tiger

  The Rabbit and the Elephant

  The Swan and the Crow

  The Crow and the Quail

  The Fool who was Easily Satisfied

  The Blue Jackal

  The Faithful Servant

  The Greedy Barber

  BOOK IV: Sandhi / Peace

  The Foolish Tortoise

  The Three Fish

  The Quick-witted Wife

  The Short-sighted Crane

  The Hermit and the Mouse

  The Crane and the Crab

  The Priest who fantasized

  The Two Ogres

  The Priest and the Three Rogues

  The Credulous Camel

  The Cunning Old Snake

  The Hasty Priest and the Loyal Mongoose

  Notes

  Introduction

  This work, entitled Heetopades, affordeth elegance in Sanskreet idioms, in every part and variety of language, and inculcateth the doctrine of Prudence and Policy.

  —from the translation of Charles Wilkins

  The Hitopadeśa is one of the best known and most widely translated works of Sanskrit literature. It is a collection of animal and human fables in prose, illustrated with numerous maxims and sayings in verse, both intended to impart instruction in worldly wisdom and the conduct of political affairs. Couched in simple and elegant language, it was also meant to provide a model for composition and rhetoric. These features made it a popular ‘reader’ for students of Sanskrit in India from ancient to recent times.1

  The Hitopadeśa’s appeal as a compendium of sage advice in an attractive story form extended its currency beyond the confines of the original language. At the beginning of this century, the Indologist Johannes Hertel noted2 tha
t its translations already existed in Bangla, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi, Newari, Oriya, Tamil, Telugu and Urdu. The United States Library of Congress lists additional contemporary translations of the Hitopadeśa into Burmese, Dutch, English, French, German, Greek, Khmer, Russian, Spanish and Thai. Translations in Malay, Persian and Sinhala have also been recorded.3 The work has been described as one of the most often translated from Sanskrit into European languages.4 This was doubtless also because it was among the first Sanskrit texts encountered and studied by Europeans after the establishment of British rule in India.

  The Hitopadeśa was the second work to have been translated directly from Sanskrit into English.5 This took place as early as 1787. The first work so translated was the Bhagavad Gita, three years earlier. The translator in both cases was Charles Wilkins (1749-1836), a merchant employed by the East India Company in Bengal. Wilkins also collaborated with the more celebrated scholar Sir William Jones (1746-94), who founded the Asiatic Society in Calcutta, and himself subsequently translated other Sanskrit classics. The first printed edition of the Hitopadeśa was published in Serampore along with some other Sanskrit texts in 1804 by Henry Colebrooke (1765–1837). It is appropriate here to pay tribute to these pioneers whose work first aroused modern interest in Sanskrit and helped to lay the foundation of Indological studies.

  The Date, the Author, and the Locale

  The Hitopadeśa contains quotations from the political treatise Nītisāra of Kāmandaki, and the play Veṇīsamhāra of Bhattanārāyaṇa, which date back to the eighth century AD. The earliest Hitopadeśa manuscript, found in Nepal, bears a date corresponding to 1373 AD. Between these two outer limits present scholarly opinion places its composition in the period 800 to 950 AD, or just over a thousand years ago.6

  For almost a hundred years after its first rendition into English, contemporary scholars considered the author of the Hitopadeśa to be Viṣṇu Śarma, who is also the principal character and narrator in the work. It was only when the Nepal manuscript was discovered and a new critical edition of the text7 prepared, that its two concluding verses came to light. The first of these names the author as Nārāyaṇa. The second names his patron Dhavala Ćandra, who commissioned the book.

  As with many ancient Sanskrit authors, little is known about Nārāyaṇa beyond his name. From the text of the Hitopadeśa it is obvious that he was a person of considerable erudition, perhaps a court poet or preceptor, and evidently a devotee of the great god Śiva, whom he invokes both in the opening and concluding verses. He addresses Dhavala Ćandra by the titles ‘Śrimat’ and ‘Māndalika’ which have been rendered in the present translation as ‘illustrious prince’, but could also signify a viceroy or provincial satrap. The territorial and other details regarding the life and rule of this dignitary have still to be discovered.

  It has been conjectured that the Hitopadeśa was composed in eastern India. Its manuscripts have been found in Nagari, Newari and Bengali scripts. One of the tales (I.viii) refers to tantrik rituals and sexual practices which were prevalent in that part of the country.8 Two of its verse quotations from the Rāmāyaṇa (1.77 and 4.29) are available only in the Bengali recension of the epic.9 Of the thirty-five geographical locations mentioned in the Hitopadeśa stories, at least nine can be placed definitely in eastern India, if Ayodhya and Varanasi are included in that region. By comparison, those which can be identified in the northern, western and peninsular regions are fewer. The totality of this data relevant to dating and location, taken together with the fact of the text’s continued popularity in the east at the time of the British arrival, points to its origin during the last phase of the Pala empire, which dominated eastern India at the turn of the millennium.

  The Nature of the Work

  The nature of the Hitopadeśa is clearly defined in its prologue. The second verse names the work and asserts that its study gives knowledge of ‘nīti’, apart from proficiency in language. Subsequent verses extol the merits of learning and knowledge. The work is a manual of nīti. This Sanskrit word, derived from a root which means to lead or to guide, carries the connotations of worldly wisdom, prudence and propriety, as well as appropriate policy and conduct or, by extension, politics and statesmanship. A portion of Sanskrit literature is entirely devoted to the subject of nīti. The Hitopadeśa expounds it in a popular form through fables and gnomic stanzas.

  The work has also been placed in the Sanskrit literary genre of the nidarśana kathā or exemplum, a story which aims to teach by examples and is often satirical. The pattern is the familiar one of a frame tale emboxing others in turn. The basic narrative describes a king, worried that his sons lack learning and are becoming wayward. He summons an assembly of wise men and asks who among them can cause his sons to be ‘born again’ by teaching them nīti. The challenge is accepted by a great pandit named Viṣṇu Śarma, whose expertise in nīti parallels that of Bṛhaspati, the guru of all the gods. The princes are entrusted to Viṣṇu Śarma, and he instructs them by narrating the four books of the Hitopadeśa, each with its own mix of stories within stories illustrated with epigrammatic verses.

  Relationship with the Panćatantra

  The structure of the Hitopadeśa is remarkably similar to that more ancient collection of tales, the Panćatantra. Both works have an almost identical frame story, and the principal narrator has the same name. Their relationship has been described variously by modern scholars. Basham considered the Hitopadeśa to be a ‘version’ of the Panćatantra, Keith a ‘descendant’, Winternitz a recast, while Dasgupta and De described it as ‘practically an independent work’.10 A detailed study made more recently by Ludwig Sternbach11 demonstrated that the Panćatantra provides the chief source of material for the Hitopadeśa. Nearly three quarters of the latter, including almost one third of its verses, were traced to the older work.

  Nārāyaṇa has specifically acknowledged this source. In the ninth verse of his prologue, he names his four books and states that they have been composed by drawing from the Panćatantra and another work. The version of the Panćatantra from which he drew his material is, however, unknown at present. In some instances the Hitopadeśa text is nearer to the Panćatantra’s southern recension, in others to the Kashmiri, the Nepalese or even the old Syriac version.12 Compared with the five books of the Panćatantra, the Hitopadeśa has only four. In these the order of the older work’s first two books—except as found in the Nepalese text—has been reversed; its third book has been divided into two; and parts of the fifth book have been incorporated into them. The fourth book of the Panćatantra is mostly omitted in the Hitopadeśa, and at least ten of the latter’s thirty-eight interpolated stories are not found in any Panćatantra version at all. Of the over two hundred verses traced to various Panćatantra versions, a majority are found in the first two books of the Hitopadeśa. Though mostly scattered, they also include some sequences such as 1.173 to 1.178 and 2.129 to 2.136 in the present translation.

  Other Sources of the Hitopadeśa

  Nārāyaṇa’s ‘another work’ covers multiple sources. Sternbach’s study categorizes them into three broad groups: nīti, dharmaśāstra, and other miscellaneous works. The first two are reflected mainly in the verse portions of the Hitopadeśa.

  Apart from the Panćatantra, Nārāyaṇa’s single main source is the verse composition Nītisāra of Kāmandaki. Nearly ninety verses in the Hitopadeśa are quotations from this work. Devoted chiefly to the aspects of nīti that deal with political theory, most of these verses are contained in the third and fourth books. They discuss the subjects of diplomacy, war and peace. Good examples are verses 4.111 to 4.132, describing sixteen types of peace treaties, which are taken from the Nitisāra, 9.1 to 9.22. The majority of verses 3.69 to 3.84 are similarly derived.

  The Nītisāra is based on a celebrated earlier dissertation on politics, the Arthaśāstra ascribed to Kautilya, also known as Ćāṇakya. Nārāyaṇa mentions this legendary statesman (3.60) though, interestingly, he has no quotations from the
Arthaśāstra. The Hitopadeśa does feature a large number of stanzas from various nīti verse anthologies named after Ćāṇakya, such as the Vṛddha and the Laghu Ćāṇakya, the Ćāṇakya Sāra Samgraha and the Ćāṇakya Rāja Nīti Śāstra. It also contains nīti verses from the Garuḍa Purāṇa and the well-known Nītiśataka of Bhartṛhari.

  The term dharmaśāstra here refers to the vast body of literature dealing with legal and juridical precepts which acquired scriptural status in the course of time. Nārāyaṇa quotes about sixty verses from this category of works, his main sources being the Manu Smṛti and Books XII and XIII of the Mahābhārata. Others include the juridical works named after lawgivers like Gautama, āpastamba and Baudhāyana.

  The miscellaneous sources include the two epics, various Purāṇas, and well-known poetic and dramatic compositions such as the Śiśupālavadha of Māgha (3.96), the Kirātārjunīya of Bhāravi (4.103), and the Mṛćchakatika of Śūdraka (2.126). The verse numbers indicated within brackets are sample quotations in the Hitopadeśa from the last three works. Some of the Hitopadeśa material is also found in other collections of stories. For example, the tales of the woman with the two lovers (II.vi), and the faithful servant Vīravara (III.viii) also occur respectively in the popular collections, the Śukasaptati and the Vetāla Panćavimśatikā. In the absence of a clearly established comparative chronology, who borrowed from whom is an open question. A number of Hitopadeśa verses are also found in the old Javanese and Pali literature of south-east Asia, and the Tibetan and Mongolian literature of Central Asia. In these cases too the primary sources are still to be determined.

  This Hitopadeśa Verses

  The over seven hundred verses interspersed in its prose text are a distinctive feature of the Hitopadeśa. Some of these, like the first two and the last three of the work, and the concluding stanzas of its first three books, are probably the author’s own compositions. The others are direct or modified quotations. The book is thus as much a verse anthology as a compilation of fables on nīti.